Christmas Music Season and Celebrations

"Christmas album" redirects here. For other uses, see Christmas Album (disambiguation).
"Christmas song" redirects here. For the Mel Tormé composition, see The Christmas Song. For the Mannheim Steamroller album, see Christmas Song (album). For other uses, see Christmas Songs (disambiguation).
"Holiday Song" redirects here. For the Pixies song, see Come On Pilgrim.
Christmas music band performs at a California shopping mall (2008)

Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter.

Music was an early feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest chants, litanies, and hymns were Latin works intended for use during the church liturgy, rather than popular songs. The 13th century saw the rise of the carol written in the vernacular, under the influence of Francis of Assisi.

In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing and called them carols. Later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Audelay, a Shropshire priest and poet, who lists 25 "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house.[1] Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of the great musicians.